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CSET English Subtest 2 Practice Test

Unofficial practice for CSET: English Subtest II: language, linguistics and literacy.

"Blackboard" is built from two stems, black and board. What is such a word called?

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Unofficial practice questions, not affiliated with the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing or Pearson. Bank checked October 11, 2026.

The four subtests at a glance 8 lines, made to print

CSET: English: the four subtests

What the program's own pages say about each subtest of CSET: English, read October 11, 2026. Unofficial summary; check the test page before you register.

The subtests

  • Subtest I (test code 105) 50 multiple-choice questions: 40 on Reading Literature and Informational Texts and 10 on Composition and Rhetoric. 1 hour and 30 minutes.
  • Subtest II (test code 106) 50 multiple-choice questions on Language, Linguistics, and Literacy. 1 hour.
  • Subtest III (test code 107) 2 extended constructed-response questions, one on a literary text and one on a nonliterary text. 2 hours.
  • Subtest IV (test code 108) 4 short constructed-response questions on Communications: Speech, Media, and Creative Performance. 1 hour and 30 minutes.

All four subtests

  • Each subtest is scored separately, and the passing score is 220 per subtest on a scale of 100 to 300.
  • Subtests I and II are 100% multiple choice. Subtests III and IV are 100% constructed response.
  • All four subtests at a test center in one session: 6 hours. Fifteen more minutes are given for a nondisclosure agreement and tutorial.
  • Online proctoring is available. With an online proctor each subtest is a separate session, registered for separately.

Source: Test page https://www.ctcexams.nesinc.com/TestView.aspx?f=HTML_FRAG/CA_CSET105_TestPage.html and test structure https://www.ctcexams.nesinc.com/Content/StudyGuide/CA_SG_obj_105.htm of the California Educator Credentialing Assessments, read 2026-10-11; scale from the Test Results Report Information (https://www.ctcexams.nesinc.com/content/docs/CS_ScoreReport_Insert.pdf), read 2026-10-11. Checked October 11, 2026.

Next step Next: CSET English Subtest III essay prompts

All 50 questions

Human language structures 16

  • A bilingual student moves between Spanish and English within one conversation. What is this called? Wikipedia, Code-switching (read 2026-10-11). Outline: CSET: English Subtest II subject matter requirements, Language, Linguistics, and Literacy 0001 Human Language Structures (SMR 2.1).
  • At dinner a guest asks, "Is there any salt?" and the host passes it. Which branch of linguistics studies how context turned the question into a request? Wikipedia, Pragmatics (read 2026-10-11). Outline: CSET: English Subtest II subject matter requirements, Language, Linguistics, and Literacy 0001 Human Language Structures (SMR 2.1).
  • "Blackboard" is built from two stems, black and board. What is such a word called? Wikipedia, Compound (linguistics) (read 2026-10-11). Outline: CSET: English Subtest II subject matter requirements, Language, Linguistics, and Literacy 0001 Human Language Structures (SMR 2.1).
  • "Dog bites man" and "Man bites dog" use the same words, yet the order changes who did what. Word order is a central concern of which branch of linguistics? Wikipedia, Syntax (read 2026-10-11). Outline: CSET: English Subtest II subject matter requirements, Language, Linguistics, and Literacy 0001 Human Language Structures (SMR 2.1).
Show all 50 questions (46 more)

Human language structures, continued

  • The Great Vowel Shift took place mainly between 1400 and 1700. What changed in it? Wikipedia, Great Vowel Shift (read 2026-10-11). Outline: CSET: English Subtest II subject matter requirements, Language, Linguistics, and Literacy 0001 Human Language Structures (SMR 2.1).
  • "Happiness" is formed from "happy" by adding -ness. What is this process of forming a new word from an existing one called? Wikipedia, Morphological derivation (read 2026-10-11). Outline: CSET: English Subtest II subject matter requirements, Language, Linguistics, and Literacy 0001 Human Language Structures (SMR 2.1).
  • In "cats", the plural -s cannot stand as a word by itself. What kind of morpheme is it? Wikipedia, Bound and free morphemes (read 2026-10-11). Outline: CSET: English Subtest II subject matter requirements, Language, Linguistics, and Literacy 0001 Human Language Structures (SMR 2.1).
  • In linguistics, which definition fits the term morpheme? Wikipedia, Morpheme (read 2026-10-11). Outline: CSET: English Subtest II subject matter requirements, Language, Linguistics, and Literacy 0001 Human Language Structures (SMR 2.1).
  • In phonetics, what happens when a speech sound is voiced? Wikipedia, Voice (phonetics) (read 2026-10-11). Outline: CSET: English Subtest II subject matter requirements, Language, Linguistics, and Literacy 0001 Human Language Structures (SMR 2.1).
  • Two speakers use the same grammar and vocabulary but pronounce words differently. In general terms, what do they differ in? Wikipedia, Dialect (read 2026-10-11). Outline: CSET: English Subtest II subject matter requirements, Language, Linguistics, and Literacy 0001 Human Language Structures (SMR 2.1).
  • "Walk" becomes "walked" to show past tense. What is the modification of a word to express a grammatical category such as tense called? Wikipedia, Inflection (read 2026-10-11). Outline: CSET: English Subtest II subject matter requirements, Language, Linguistics, and Literacy 0001 Human Language Structures (SMR 2.1).
  • What is a creole language? Wikipedia, Creole language (read 2026-10-11). Outline: CSET: English Subtest II subject matter requirements, Language, Linguistics, and Literacy 0001 Human Language Structures (SMR 2.1).
  • What is a phoneme? Wikipedia, Phoneme (read 2026-10-11). Outline: CSET: English Subtest II subject matter requirements, Language, Linguistics, and Literacy 0001 Human Language Structures (SMR 2.1).
  • Which branch of linguistics is the study of linguistic meaning? Wikipedia, Semantics (read 2026-10-11). Outline: CSET: English Subtest II subject matter requirements, Language, Linguistics, and Literacy 0001 Human Language Structures (SMR 2.1).
  • Which theory, usually credited to Noam Chomsky, concerns the innate biological component of the language faculty? Wikipedia, Universal grammar (read 2026-10-11). Outline: CSET: English Subtest II subject matter requirements, Language, Linguistics, and Literacy 0001 Human Language Structures (SMR 2.1).
  • The word "unbreakable" can be split into how many morphemes? Wikipedia, Morpheme (read 2026-10-11). Outline: CSET: English Subtest II subject matter requirements, Language, Linguistics, and Literacy 0001 Human Language Structures (SMR 2.1).

Acquisition and development of language and literacy 16

  • A child hears the word "cat" and can say its three separate sounds. Which skill is this? Wikipedia, Phonemic awareness (read 2026-10-11). Outline: CSET: English Subtest II subject matter requirements, Language, Linguistics, and Literacy 0002 Acquisition and Development of Language and Literacy (SMR 2.2).
  • A family moves abroad. The six-year-old soon sounds like a local, while the parents keep an accent for life. Which hypothesis explains the difference by age? Wikipedia, Critical period hypothesis (read 2026-10-11). Outline: CSET: English Subtest II subject matter requirements, Language, Linguistics, and Literacy 0002 Acquisition and Development of Language and Literacy (SMR 2.2).
  • A learner assumes that a word in the new language means the same as a similar-sounding word in her first language, and is wrong. What are such misleading pairs called? Wikipedia, False friend (read 2026-10-11). Outline: CSET: English Subtest II subject matter requirements, Language, Linguistics, and Literacy 0002 Acquisition and Development of Language and Literacy (SMR 2.2).
  • A learner carries a word order from her first language into English sentences. What is this influence of one language on another called? Wikipedia, Language transfer (read 2026-10-11). Outline: CSET: English Subtest II subject matter requirements, Language, Linguistics, and Literacy 0002 Acquisition and Development of Language and Literacy (SMR 2.2).
  • A learner who feels afraid or embarrassed in class takes in less of the new language. Which of Krashen's hypotheses describes this? Wikipedia, Input hypothesis (read 2026-10-11). Outline: CSET: English Subtest II subject matter requirements, Language, Linguistics, and Literacy 0002 Acquisition and Development of Language and Literacy (SMR 2.2).
  • A newcomer chats easily with friends at lunch but struggles with the abstract language of a science lesson. In Cummins's terms, which has she already developed? Wikipedia, Cognitive academic language proficiency (read 2026-10-11). Outline: CSET: English Subtest II subject matter requirements, Language, Linguistics, and Literacy 0002 Acquisition and Development of Language and Literacy (SMR 2.2).
  • A reader fits a new article about volcanoes into what she already knows about them. In psychology, what is a pattern of thought that organizes categories of information and the relationships among them called? Wikipedia, Schema (psychology) (read 2026-10-11). Outline: CSET: English Subtest II subject matter requirements, Language, Linguistics, and Literacy 0002 Acquisition and Development of Language and Literacy (SMR 2.2).
  • A reader stops and asks herself, "Did I understand that paragraph?" What is thinking about one's own thinking called? Wikipedia, Metacognition (read 2026-10-11). Outline: CSET: English Subtest II subject matter requirements, Language, Linguistics, and Literacy 0002 Acquisition and Development of Language and Literacy (SMR 2.2).
  • A semantic map and a word web are tools that use visual symbols to show knowledge through the relationships between concepts. What is the general name for such a tool? Wikipedia, Graphic organizer (read 2026-10-11). Outline: CSET: English Subtest II subject matter requirements, Language, Linguistics, and Literacy 0002 Acquisition and Development of Language and Literacy (SMR 2.2).
  • A teacher models a summary, then supplies sentence starters, and adjusts the help to what each student needs. What is this support called? Wikipedia, Instructional scaffolding (read 2026-10-11). Outline: CSET: English Subtest II subject matter requirements, Language, Linguistics, and Literacy 0002 Acquisition and Development of Language and Literacy (SMR 2.2).
  • In Krashen's input hypothesis, what kind of input is called "i+1"? Wikipedia, Input hypothesis (read 2026-10-11). Outline: CSET: English Subtest II subject matter requirements, Language, Linguistics, and Literacy 0002 Acquisition and Development of Language and Literacy (SMR 2.2).
  • Vygotsky's zone of proximal development is the space between which two things? Wikipedia, Zone of proximal development (read 2026-10-11). Outline: CSET: English Subtest II subject matter requirements, Language, Linguistics, and Literacy 0002 Acquisition and Development of Language and Literacy (SMR 2.2).
  • What do linguists call the idiolect that a learner of a second language develops along the way, with some features of the first language still in it? Wikipedia, Interlanguage (read 2026-10-11). Outline: CSET: English Subtest II subject matter requirements, Language, Linguistics, and Literacy 0002 Acquisition and Development of Language and Literacy (SMR 2.2).
  • Which method teaches beginners to read by teaching the relationship between the sounds of the spoken language and the letters of the written language? Wikipedia, Phonics (read 2026-10-11). Outline: CSET: English Subtest II subject matter requirements, Language, Linguistics, and Literacy 0002 Acquisition and Development of Language and Literacy (SMR 2.2).
  • Which part of a college-level dictionary entry gives the origin and history of a word? Wikipedia, Etymology (read 2026-10-11). Outline: CSET: English Subtest II subject matter requirements, Language, Linguistics, and Literacy 0002 Acquisition and Development of Language and Literacy (SMR 2.2).
  • Words in related languages that were inherited from the same ancestral word in a common parent language are called what? Wikipedia, Cognate (read 2026-10-11). Outline: CSET: English Subtest II subject matter requirements, Language, Linguistics, and Literacy 0002 Acquisition and Development of Language and Literacy (SMR 2.2).

Grammatical structures of English 18

  • A writer changes "The game ended. The fans cheered." to "When the game ended, the fans cheered." Which sentence-combining technique is this? Purdue Online Writing Lab, Strategies for Variation: for short, choppy sentences (read 2026-10-11). Outline: CSET: English Subtest II subject matter requirements, Language, Linguistics, and Literacy 0003 Grammatical Structures of English (SMR 2.3).
  • "Although it rained, we played the match." Which type of sentence is this? Wikipedia, Sentence clause structure (read 2026-10-11). Outline: CSET: English Subtest II subject matter requirements, Language, Linguistics, and Literacy 0003 Grammatical Structures of English (SMR 2.3).
  • "Because the bus was late" has a subject and a verb but cannot stand as a sentence. Why? Purdue Online Writing Lab, Identifying Independent and Dependent Clauses (read 2026-10-11). Outline: CSET: English Subtest II subject matter requirements, Language, Linguistics, and Literacy 0003 Grammatical Structures of English (SMR 2.3).
  • In "Let's read a book", what does the article "a" show about the noun? Purdue Online Writing Lab, Using Articles (read 2026-10-11). Outline: CSET: English Subtest II subject matter requirements, Language, Linguistics, and Literacy 0003 Grammatical Structures of English (SMR 2.3).
  • In "My brother, a chef, cooked dinner", what is the phrase "a chef"? Purdue Online Writing Lab, Appositives (read 2026-10-11). Outline: CSET: English Subtest II subject matter requirements, Language, Linguistics, and Literacy 0003 Grammatical Structures of English (SMR 2.3).
  • In "She hopes to travel", what is "to travel"? Purdue Online Writing Lab, Infinitives (read 2026-10-11). Outline: CSET: English Subtest II subject matter requirements, Language, Linguistics, and Literacy 0003 Grammatical Structures of English (SMR 2.3).
  • In "Swimming builds endurance", what kind of verbal is the word "swimming"? Purdue Online Writing Lab, Gerunds (read 2026-10-11). Outline: CSET: English Subtest II subject matter requirements, Language, Linguistics, and Literacy 0003 Grammatical Structures of English (SMR 2.3).
  • In "The cheering crowd filled the stands", what kind of verbal is the word "cheering"? Purdue Online Writing Lab, Participles (read 2026-10-11). Outline: CSET: English Subtest II subject matter requirements, Language, Linguistics, and Literacy 0003 Grammatical Structures of English (SMR 2.3).
  • In "The quick runner won", which word class does "quick" belong to, and what does it modify? Purdue Online Writing Lab, Adjective or Adverb? (read 2026-10-11). Outline: CSET: English Subtest II subject matter requirements, Language, Linguistics, and Literacy 0003 Grammatical Structures of English (SMR 2.3).
  • In "The runner finished quickly", what does the adverb "quickly" modify? Purdue Online Writing Lab, Adjective or Adverb? (read 2026-10-11). Outline: CSET: English Subtest II subject matter requirements, Language, Linguistics, and Literacy 0003 Grammatical Structures of English (SMR 2.3).
  • In which of these sentences is the action performed upon the subject? Purdue Online Writing Lab, Active Versus Passive Voice (read 2026-10-11). Outline: CSET: English Subtest II subject matter requirements, Language, Linguistics, and Literacy 0003 Grammatical Structures of English (SMR 2.3).
  • The standardization of English spelling began in the 15th and 16th centuries. What is the major reason that English spellings now often differ from the sounds they stand for? Wikipedia, Great Vowel Shift (read 2026-10-11). Outline: CSET: English Subtest II subject matter requirements, Language, Linguistics, and Literacy 0003 Grammatical Structures of English (SMR 2.3).
  • "Their" and "there" are pronounced the same but differ in meaning and spelling. What are such words called? Wikipedia, Homophone (read 2026-10-11). Outline: CSET: English Subtest II subject matter requirements, Language, Linguistics, and Literacy 0003 Grammatical Structures of English (SMR 2.3).
  • Which set lists coordinating conjunctions, the words that can join two independent clauses with a comma? Purdue Online Writing Lab, Identifying Independent and Dependent Clauses (read 2026-10-11). Outline: CSET: English Subtest II subject matter requirements, Language, Linguistics, and Literacy 0003 Grammatical Structures of English (SMR 2.3).
  • Which set lists the most common relative pronouns, the words that begin a relative clause? Purdue Online Writing Lab, Introduction and General Usage in Defining Clauses (read 2026-10-11). Outline: CSET: English Subtest II subject matter requirements, Language, Linguistics, and Literacy 0003 Grammatical Structures of English (SMR 2.3).
  • Which statement is true of modal helping verbs such as can, may, must and should? Purdue Online Writing Lab, Verbs with Helpers (read 2026-10-11). Outline: CSET: English Subtest II subject matter requirements, Language, Linguistics, and Literacy 0003 Grammatical Structures of English (SMR 2.3).
  • Which verb phrase is in the present perfect tense? Purdue Online Writing Lab, Verb Tenses (read 2026-10-11). Outline: CSET: English Subtest II subject matter requirements, Language, Linguistics, and Literacy 0003 Grammatical Structures of English (SMR 2.3).
  • "The whistle blew, and the players left the field." Which type of sentence is this? Wikipedia, Sentence clause structure (read 2026-10-11). Outline: CSET: English Subtest II subject matter requirements, Language, Linguistics, and Literacy 0003 Grammatical Structures of English (SMR 2.3).

How this list was compiled: Our own questions, written to the published subject matter requirements of CSET: English Subtest II, test code 106, read 2026-10-11 on the program site of the California Educator Credentialing Assessments (test page https://www.ctcexams.nesinc.com/TestView.aspx?f=HTML_FRAG/CA_CSET105_TestPage.html; test structure https://www.ctcexams.nesinc.com/Content/StudyGuide/CA_SG_obj_105.htm; subtest description https://www.ctcexams.nesinc.com/content/docs/CSET_Prep/CS_106subtestdescription.pdf). The structure gives Subtest II 50 multiple-choice questions in one domain, Language, Linguistics, and Literacy, and no constructed-response questions. It prints no count for each of the three competencies, so the 50 questions of this bank are spread over them: 16 on human language structures, 16 on the acquisition and development of language and literacy and 18 on the grammatical structures of English. Definitions were read on 2026-10-11 in the Wikipedia article or the Purdue Online Writing Lab page named under each question; the example sentences are ours. Licence: Questions, choices and explanations are original work of this site.

How it works

This free CSET English Subtest 2 practice test asks 50 questions of our own on language structure, acquisition and English grammar, the length of the real subtest. Unofficial, and not affiliated with the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing or Pearson.

Read the full guide

What Subtest II asks

Subtest II of CSET: English is test code 106. By the test structure read October 11, 2026, it is 50 multiple-choice questions in one domain, Language, Linguistics, and Literacy, with no written questions. Exam mode asks 50 in the real limit of 1 hour.

The three competencies

The subject matter requirements list three: human language structures, from sounds and word parts to meaning in context; the acquisition and development of language and literacy; and the grammatical structures of English. The questions are sorted the same way.

Where the answers come from

Definitions were read in the Wikipedia article or the Purdue Online Writing Lab page named under each question. The example sentences are ours.

  • Many questions turn on telling two near terms apart: inflection and derivation, accent and dialect, gerund and participle.

Questions and answers

Is this CSET English Subtest 2 practice test free?

Yes. All 50 questions and their explanations are free, with no sign-up. They are ours: none is taken or reworded from the real subtest, its sample questions or the official practice test, and no score is predicted.

How many questions are on CSET English Subtest 2?

50 multiple-choice questions and no constructed-response questions, by the test structure. All 50 are in one domain: Language, Linguistics, and Literacy.

How long is CSET English Subtest 2?

1 hour, by the test page, plus 15 minutes for a nondisclosure agreement and tutorial. Subtests I and IV are 1 hour and 30 minutes each, and Subtest III is 2 hours.

What is the passing score for CSET English Subtest 2?

220, on the program's scale of 100 to 300. A scaled score is not a percent of questions, so this page shows how many you got right and gives no verdict.

Can you take CSET English Subtest 2 online?

Yes. The test page lists online proctoring for CSET: English as well as test centers. With an online proctor each subtest is its own session, registered for separately.

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